THE 

TOVN 

THAT 

FOUND 
IT5ELF 


THE  TOWN  THAT 
FOUND  ITSELF 


Published  by 

COMMUNITY    SERVICE  (Incorporated) 

NATIONAL  HEADQUARTERS 

ONE  MADISON  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

Number  7 


COPyRJQHT  1919,  BY  COMMUNITY   SERVICE,  INCORPORATED 


The  Mason's 

Club  House 
Southport 


THE  TOWN 

THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


By  JOHN  R.  COLTER 

NCE  upon  a  time  a  little  over  two  years  ago  there 
was  a  town  in  our  South  which  was  socially 
poverty-stricken.  It  was  a  century  and  a  half 
old,  and  sixty  per  cent  of  its  white  citizens  were 
members  of  five  or  six  families  who  had  lived 
there  for  generations;  yet  there  were  persons  who 
did  not  know  their  own  cousins  living  a  few  rods 
off.  There  were  various  social  circles,  clannish  circles,  whose 
members  never  met.  Religious  denominations  did  not  mingle. 
There  was  no  neighborliness  to  the  town,  no  spirit  of  get- 
together.    The  people  themselves  said  so. 

TT  was  the  more  surprising  because  the  town  was  isolated 
*  by  Nature  and  has  remained  so  for  lack  of  good  roads. 
You  might  think  that  a  community  which  is  visited  by  a 
single  train  and  single  little  river  boat  a  day  would  have 
learned  to  become  socially  self-nourishing.  But  it  had  not. 
Never  at  any  time  did  the  people  of  this  town  all  get  together 
to  talk,  to  sing,  walk,  play,  dance,  listen  to  entertainment 
or  laugh  together.  In  consequence  the  town  did  not  know 
itself.  Incidentally  their  children  did  not  know  how  to  play 
games  and  get  fun  out  of  them — which  boded  ill  for  the  next 
generation.  And  thus  things  had  been  in  this  North  Caro- 
lina town  for  a  long  while. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


4 


BUT  somebody  shot  somebody  in  Europe  and  a  while  later 
we  went  to  war.  The  fort  which  stood  on  an  island  close 
to  this  seaport  town  began  to  bristle  new  guns  and  extra 
complements  of  men.  Before  long  the  Government  was 
shipping  young  artillerymen  down  to  the  fort  from  all  over  the 
country— till  they  outnumbered  the  citizens  of  the  adjacent 
town.  Then  suddenly  the  town  realized  that  it  was  a  war 
camp  community. 

"Thirty  miles  away,  by  boat,  there  is  a  larger  city,"  the 
people  told  themselves,  "but  we  are  here  close  at  hand.  We 
must  be  host  to  these  boys  of  every  state." 

And  you  know  the  result,  for  it  is  a  truly  patriotic  town. 
In  spite  of  its  lack  of  organization  socially,  in  spite  of  heavy 
Liberty  Loan  and  welfare  quotas  under  which  it  staggered 
(for  it  is  by  no  means  a  well-to-do  town) — in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  there  isn't  a  man  in  town  worth  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
the  town  established  a  fine  Army  and  Navy  Club  and  gave  deep 
from  purse  and  heart  to  maintain  a  royal  welcome  for  every 
man  of  the  service  who  put  foot  on  their  soil.  Perhaps  you 
can  guess  the  further  result:  that  through  serving  others  the 
town  found  itself.  The  girls  and  women  made  cakes  together; 
danced  and  entertained  side  by  side.  The  mothers  of  this 
town  joined  hands  to  make  a  service  flag — and  dedicated  it  in 
rousing  public  meeting.  The  fathers  mingled  in  hard-working 
committees  to  do  this  and  that  for  the  soldiers.  Till  the 
entertaining  of  soldiers  became  the  community  passion  and  the 
club-house  the  social  center  of  the  town. 

The  town  is  Southport,  North  Carolina.  I  cannot  call  it 
a  city  even  though  it  is  that  legally.  It  lies  thirty  miles  south 
of  Wilmington,  on  a  beautiful,  elevated  point  of  land  above 
where  the  Cape  Fear  River  flows  into  the  sea.    There  are 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


5 


lovely  grassy  lanes  (called  streets)  running  between  mighty 
live-oaks  and  merging  in  a  magnificent  common  or  broad 
public  lawn  which  is  itself  hemmed  by  the  giants  which  show 
green  the  year  around.  At  dusk,  when  Southport  might  be 
at  supper  and  the  common  and  its  great  sentinels  alone  in  their 
beauty,  you  would  not  be  at  all  surprised  to  see  a  Druid  of 
old  step  forth  from  the  heart  of  one  of  the  great  trees  and  lift 
bearded  face  to  worship.  Folks  sit  on  the  porches  of  their 
old  colonial  homes  and  listen  to  sounds  no  more  disturbing 
than  the  low  of  the  cattle  grazing  in  a  nearby  yard  and  the 
gentle  moan  of  the  whistling-buoy  out  in  the  river  channel. 
"God  did  a  lot  for  the  town"  they  say — and  they  are  right. 

But  the  trouble  was  that  the  people  of  Southport  did  little 
to  keep  the  town  and  the  town  life  as  beautiful  as  was  intended. 
It  is  a  fault  true  of  a  good  many  thousand  towns  of  its  size  in 
the  South,  North — yes,  and  even  in  the  West — and,  anyway, 
Southport  has  overcome  the  fault,  so  there  can  be  no  harm  in 
speaking  publicly  of  it.  There  was  nothing  to  draw  them 
together,  before  the  war,  though  they  lived  in  a  half-mile 
diameter!  There  was,  literally,  no  community  spirit.  They 
did  not  put  to  use  the  perfect  plaza  of  green  lawn  and  shade 
trees.  They  did  not  even  bother  to  keep  it  very  clean.  They 
tore  up  their  letters  at  the  post-office  and  crumpled  their 
cracker  bags  at  the  grocery  and  let  the  sea-breeze  speckle  the 
common  with  waste.  They  said  "Good  enough!"  to  the  old 
schoolhouse,  though  its  bottom  showed  an  ugly  gap  where  it 
had  been  propped  from  the  earth — and  it  never  occurred  to 
them  to  beautify  the  town  by  putting  a  hedge  around  this 
scar.  Nor  yellow  jessamine  'round  the  telegraph  poles,  which 
would  have  been  a  fine  touch.  Nor  a  fine  straight  Carolina 
pine,  trimmed  to  a  flagstaff,  floating  the  flag  over  the  common. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


b 


Nor  Chautauquas.  These  things  and  public  dances  and 
amateur  theatricals  and  community  sings  and  pageants  and 
adequate  library  facilities  and  story  hours  of  the  town's 
marvellous  legends  of  Revolutionary  days — they  did  not  come 
to  pass  in  Southport,  though  the  need  was  great  for  them. 

Little  wonder,  then,  that  Susan  Blank,  nineteen,  lovely, 
intelligent,  brought  up  wholly  within  this  isolated  town,  when 
asked  who  the  other  girl  of  exactly  the  same  name  as  hers  was, 
replied: 

"She  must  be  a  cousin  of  mine,  I  reckon.  I  never  did  hear 
of  her  before — but  there's  slews  of  folks  in  this  town  I  don't 
know!"' 

Little  wonder  that  there  are  many  persons,  not  enemies  but 
casual  friends,  who  lived  their  lives  together  in  this  town 
without  seeing  and  chatting  with  each  other  in  years.  (Re- 
member that  there  are  a  thousand  white  people  in  the  town 
and  the  business  section  runs,  perhaps,  two  blocks.)  Little 
wonder  either  that  the  newspaper  once  published  there  failed 
and  died,  and  that  births,  funerals,  weddings  and  the  like 
are  made  known  by  a  single  written  announcement  which  a 
negro  servant  carries  from  house  to  house — to  be  read  and 
handed  back.  Very  little  wonder  that  there  was  a  social 
poverty. 

It  took  the  war  to  wake  up  Southport.  The  Masons  of  the 
town  started  things  by  giving  over  the  greater  part  of  their 
splendid  clubhouse  which  overlooks  the  beautiful  common  in 
the  center  of  the  town.  They  raised  money,  got  others  to 
raise  money,  got  a  gift  of  a  bowling  alley,  scraped,  managed, 
fought  for  the  success  of  the  venture — till  at  length  Southport 
grew  enthusiastic.  The  people  began  to  think  socially  and  act 
in  unison  for  a  common  purpose  which  was  their  very  own. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


7 


And  the  result  was,  in  detail,  that  hundreds  of  soldiers  and 
sailors  were  taken  into  homes  and  clubhouse,  that  the  life  of 
the  town  was  stimulated,  that  Southport  made  big  strides  and 
grew  ambitious. 

As  the  number  of  soldiers  increased  Southport  wanted  to 
increase  facilities  and  better  organize  the  work,  and  accordingly 
applied  to  the  agency  which  the  Government  had  appointed 
to  care  for  such  matters— the  War  Camp  Community  Service, 
operating  nationally.  More  money  was  thus  supplied,  and  a 
man  trained  in  community  social  life  was  sent  there  to  serve 
the  town  and  soldiers.  A  fine  canteen  was  built,  a  real  library 
opened,  billiard  tables,  phonographs,  bandstand,  huge  fire- 
place and  other  things  were  installed,  and  the  life  of  the  town 
grew  richer  through  efforts  to  give  others  a  fine  time.  It  was 
not  a  mild,  but  a  tremendous  success.  All  through  the  war  the 
Army  and  Navy  Club  was  the  center  of  the  town's  life.  Every 
one  came.  It  seemed  as  if  folks  were  just  now  beginning  to 
be  able  to  satisfy  a  great  social  hunger  which  had  been  gnawing 
at  the  vitals  of  their  social  being.  And  so  they  came,  in 
rompers,  on  canes,  and  all  ages  in  between.  And  the  soldiers 
certainly  enjoyed  it. 

What  a  delightful  memory  to  have,  that  they  made  so 
many  men  in  the  service  happy,  you  say.  What  a  shame 
that  such  a  thing  should  have  to  stop  with  the  signing  of  the 
armistice!  Did  the  Masons  take  back  their  building?  Sell 
the  big  phonograph,  the  bowling  alley,  and  strip  the  canteen, 
perhaps? 

No.  The  story  of  Southport  is  just  beginning.  The  Army 
and  Navy  Club  is  not  and  never  will  be  just  a  memory  in 
Southport.  It  has  entered  too  deeply  into  the  life  of  every 
man,  woman  and  child  in  the  town  to  be  allowed  to  stop 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


8 


functioning.  I  would  wager  that  Southport  would  sooner 
give  up  electricity  and  go  back  to  oil  lamps  than  let  dwindle 
its  wonderful  community  house  and  community  service  system 
which  has  brought  riches  to  its  social  coffers.  However  much 
it  meant  before  the  armistice  was  signed,  it  has  meant  more 
since. 

I  saw  this  town  which  has  found  itself,  six  months  after 
November  1 1 .  There  were  a  few  soldiers  around,  to  be  sure, 
for  there  is  a  small  permanent  garrison  at  the  fort,  but  for 
the  most  part  it  was  the  people  of  the  town  who  were  using 
the  community  house.  As  I  entered  the  colonial-pillared 
portico  of  the  house  seven  boys  were  borrowing  tennis  nets 
and  baseball  gloves  from  the  director's  office.  Somehow  or 
other  tennis  courts  had  sprung  up  in  the  town  recently. 
Inside  the  hallway,  huddled  around  a  gleaming  new  drinking 
fountain,  were  other  boys.  It  seemed  to  be  fun  to  drink  out 
of  it  for  they  had  run  over  from  school  to  do  it.  Out  in  the 
main  hall  young  girls  were  playing  the  big  phonograph — 
whatever  they  wanted,  one-step  or  grand  opera.  Inside  of 
the  Memorial  Hall  or  auditorium  recently  completed  a  chorus 
of  children's  voices  was  coming  through  the  rye,  coming  very 
sweetly  too  as  they  rehearsed  "for  the  first  time  on  a  real 
stage,  sir!"  And  upstairs  in  the  public  library  room  older 
boys  and  girls  were  reading — and  there  was  every  good  mag- 
azine in  the  country  on  the  tables.  I  thought  that  the  whole 
of  young  Southport  must  have  walked  bodily  to  the  community 
house  straight  from  school — and  I  learned  that  I  was  pretty 
near  right.  We  sat  around  and  watched  for  several  hours 
and  it  was  a  continual  drift  of  young  people,  playing,  singing, 
borrowing  basketballs  (a  novelty)  and  boxing  gloves  and 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


o 


rackets  and  bats — all  of  which  were  promptly  dispensed  free 
by  the  director. 

The  point,  of  course,  is  that  these  boys  never  boxed  two 
years  ago!  Nor  played  tennis,  nor  even  the  more  common 
games  which  your  city  boy  was  brought  up  on.  It  is  true, 
and  it  is  true  of  hundreds  of  small  towns.  The  point  is  that 
as  sportsmanship  will  come  from  community  athletic  equip- 
ment, so  the  appreciation  of  music  will  come  from  the  big 
phonograph  which  anybody  can  run  in  and  set  going  at  any 
time.  You  should  see  them  around  it!  The  point  about  this 
community  house  is  that  it  is  giving  a  public  piano,  public 
bowling,  billiards,  auditorium,  banquet  hall,  library  and  a 
dozen  other  things  to  people  who  have  never  enjoyed  such 
things  before — people,  who  because  they  lacked  them,  drifted 
apart  from  knowing  one  another. 

It  is  a  fact  that  as  the  social  life  of  the  town  flourished, 
its  people  thought  bigger  thoughts  and  grew  broader.  Where- 
as people  had  traveled  in  cliques  before,  they  began  to  mingle 
at  the  community  house  affairs  without  regard  to  denomina- 
tion, ancient  family,  lodge  affiliation  or  other  distinction. 
The  splendid  kitchen  and  private  dining-room  of  the  com- 
munity house  tempt  the  women  of  one  church  to  give  a 
public  bazaar — and  lo!  against  all  prediction  of  failure,  it  is 
a  success.  The  women  of  the  town  came  out,  bought,  chatted, 
and  learned  more  about  each  other.  The  parents  hear  the 
children  talk  of  the  "sings"  on  the  clubhouse  lawn,  think  they 
will  go  to  look  on,  and  when  they  come  are  the  most  thrilled 
of  all  at  a  patriotic  outburst  of  song.  They  have  not  been  so 
wrought  up  emotionally  in  years;  it  is  a  big  new  thing  in 
their  life.  And  on  holidays,  I  am  told,  everyone  looks  to 
a  big  town  social  and  appropriate  celebration  at  the  "Club." 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


10 


What  an  opportunity  to  develop  a  town  like  this,  one  hungry 
for  social  culture! 

The  town  life  is  richer  by  a  hundred  ways.  There  is 
always  something  interesting  going  on  in  Southport's  little 
melting-pot" — a  dance  for  the  young  people,  or  a  spelling-bee 
in  which  the  kids  spell  down  their  elders,  perhaps,  or  a  debate 
or  lecture  or,  now  that  they  have  the  auditorium  with  stage, 
an  entertainment.  They  have  already  staged  a  woman's 
minstrel  show  and  have  arranged  for  lectures  to  women  on 
social  subjects.  Or  perhaps  there  is  nothing  special  on — 
just  to  play  the  phonograph  and  chat  with  those  who  sit  on 
the  great  stretches  of  piazzas  is  a  treat,  for  the  climate  is 
fine  and  the  air  delightfully  fresh.  Always  there  are  bright 
lights,  things  to  eat  and  drink  at  low  cost,  magazines  of  the 
latest  date,  and  others  to  talk  to.  In  short,  Southport  has 
found  itself  socially  and  is  never  going  to  lose  itself  again. 

It  is  not  hard  to  foretell  what  the  future  of  this  town  is 
going  to  be.  You  know  that  the  Masons  will  never  ask  for 
the  clubhouse  back  again,  and  instead  of  lessening  the  facilities 
the  people  will  be  adding  to  them.  You  feel  sure  that  the 
little  town  library  room,  which  has  been  able  to  afford  to 
keep  open  only  four  hours  a  week,  will  be  combined  with  the 
community  house  library  and  thus  serve  all  the  time  with 
united  strength.  Co-operation  will  develop  in  church  socials, 
bazaars  and  entertainments.  Denominational  prejudices, 
softened,  will  cease  to  play  an  active  part  in  the  town's  life. 
The  labyrinthian  relationship  of  the  people  of  the  few  families 
will  be  no  social  liability  but  an  asset.  The  phonograph 
records  will  not  be  allowed  to  grow  ancient,  nor  the  bandstand 
to  lose  its  spick-and-span  white  gleam.  Sings  and  concerts 
will  be  more  frequent  than  ever;  home  talent  will  be  developed. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


Southport  will  realize  its  ambitions,  no  doubt  of  that. 
That  plaza  of  lawn  with  the  live-oak  sentinels  will  not  be 
neglected;  the  paper  tearing  will  stop — if  it  hasn't — and 
holidays  will  be  suitably  celebrated  by  pageants  over  the  fine 
expanse  of  the  common.  It  must  be  that  way  for  the  place 
was  thus  designed  by  Nature.  The  yellow  jessamine  will 
spring  up  at  the  base  of  the  telegraph  poles;  the  school  will 
get  its  hedge;  the  newspaper  will  have  to  revive;  and  the 
flagpole,  I  forgot  to  say,  is  already  there. 

And,  perhaps  best  of  all,  the  fireplace  of  the  great  hall  in 
the  community  house  will  be  ringed  on  winter  nights  eight 
deep  with  children — and  grown  folks  too — and  there  they 
will  have  a  story-hour  and  listen  to  legends.  Not  legends  of 
other  towns,  let  us  hope,  or  far  away  places,  but  to  Southport 
tales  of  long  ago:  how  "twenty  pirates  under  the  skull  and  cross- 
bones  did  anchor  in  peaceful  Southport  harbor"  far  back  in 
1745  before  they  called  it  Southport;  how  in  Revolutionary 
days  their  forefathers  routed  the  British  from  the  county — 
across  the  King's  Highway  which  to  this  day  runs  near  the 
town;  how  the  fierce  pirate  "Blackbeard"  Teach  was  slain 
in  bloody  dirk-fight  on  his  own  slippery  deck  in  Southport 
waters.  Or  one  of  Southport 's  own  pilot-veterans  will  clear 
his  voice  and  tell  them  tales  of  pilot-houses  raked  by  Yankee 
canister  as  the  blockade-runners  slipped  out  by  night  and 
darted  between  the  Northern  frigates. 

They  will  hear  these  things,  let  us  hope,  for  Romance 
hangs  heavy  about  their  town — and  by  the  hearing  of  them 
and  the  meeting  together  they  will  be  nourishing  their  social 
life  on  their  own  lore,  in  their  own  proper  way.  And  thus 
will  Southport  most  truly  do  her  duty  by  her  youth  and  by 
Society. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


Is  that  merely  painting  a  pretty  picture?  Perhaps — but 
go  yourself  to  Southport  town  and  examine  the  canvas.  You 
will  find  that  the  miracle  is  well  sketched  in  and  ready  for 
the  paint.  Southport,  in  two  short  years,  found  itself.  It 
is  true  that  the  war  galvanized  this  community  into  action, 
but  once  started  and  encouraged  it  has  not  slipped  back 
even  in  peace.  The  moral,  of  course,  is  that  there  are  many 
Southports  in  the  United  States  which  can  find  themselves  if 
they  are  started  by  impulse  from  without.  They  need  only  a 
stimulus,  these  American  towns  of  fifteen  hundred  to  two 
thousand  population,  and  real  neighborliness  and  community 
spirit  would  spring  up  within  their  gates.  Having  looked  upon 
Southport,  having  watched  it  find  itself  and  rejoice,  I  think 
it  would  be  a  thing  tremendously  worth-while  doing. 

What  town  has  done,  town  can  do. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


OMMUNITY  SERVICE  Inc.,  has  been  formed  in 
response  to  insistent  invitation  from  scores  of 
Southports. 

It  is  the  successor  to  that  lusty,  but,  fortu- 
nately, short-lived  youngster,  War  Camp  Commu- 
nity Service,  which  in  turn  is  an  outgrowth  of  the 
Playground  and  Recreation  Association  of  America. 

The  Playground  Association  was  engaged  (as  for  a  decade 
past)  in  developing  adequate  recreational  facilities  in  Ameri- 
can cities  when  the  war  broke  out. 

Then  thousands  of  America's  finest  young  men,  answering 
the  call  to  the  colors,  began  thronging  into  camps.  The 
nearby  cities  suddenly  found  themselves  confronted  with  a 
new  and  extremely  difficult  problem.  It  was  this — what  to 
do  with  these  soldiers  and  sailors  and  marines  when  they 
came  to  town  on  leave.  Most  of  the  camp  towns  were  small. 
They  were  geared  to  entertain,  after  a  fashion  and  for  a  profit, 
a  few  hundreds  or  at  most  a  few  thousands  of  visitors,  the 
thousands  only  upon  special  occasions  such  as  conventions  or 
similar  affairs.  No  city,  not  even  New  York,  was  prepared 
to  see  that  the  boy  who  a  few  weeks  before  had  been  a  home- 
loving  American  youth  but  suddenly  had  become  a  soldier, 
set  down  among  strangers,  had  a  good  time  during  the  few 
hours  he  could  be  spared  from  the  very  necessary  and  pressing 
business  of  learning  his  new  trade. 

The  result  was  that  commercialism  in  its  ugliest  form  seized 
the  opportunity  to  exploit  your  neighbors'  sons  and  perhaps 
your  own.  The  amusement  to  be  found  by  the  soldier  or 
sailor  on  leave  in  the  early  days  was  not  the  sort  you  like  to 
think  about.  And  when  his  money  was  gone,  that  was  the  end 
of  it.    He  could  walk  the  streets  until  time  to  go  back  to  drill. 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


14 


The  War  Department  and  the  Navy  Department  quickly 
saw  the  peril  in  the  situation.  So  they  called  upon  the  Play- 
ground Association  to  take  hold,  and  War  Camp  Community 
Service  was  the  result. 

As  War  Camp  Community  Service  conceived  the  problem, 
it  could  not  be  solved  by  any  outside  agency,  no  matter  how 
great  or  how  well  organized.  It  had  to  be  met  by  the  com- 
munities themselves.  W.  C.  C.  S.  could  only  give  the  benefit 
of  its  advice  and  experience,  could  only  point  the  way.  The 
work  had  to  be  done  through  the  proper  co-ordination  of  the 
latent  recreational  facilities  of  each  camp  town  and  the  devel- 
opment by  the  citizens  themselves  of  new  facilities  where,  as 
in  nearly  every  case,  the  existing  facilities  were  inadequate. 

It  was,  as  W.C.C.S  visioned  it,  a  problem  of  neighborliness. 

What  Bill  and  Fred  wanted,  was  a  touch  of  home.  They 
wanted  to  meet  home  folks,  or,  since  that  usually  was  impos- 
sible, to  meet  the  same  sort  of  folks.  They  wanted  home 
cooking,  and  a  bed  which  was  more  like  home  than  an  army 
bunk.  They  wanted  to  see  the  town  so  they  could  write 
home  about  it.  They  wanted  to  meet  nice  girls,  like  the  girls 
they  knew  at  home,  and  wanted  buttons  sewed  on,  and  a  swim 
and  a  game  of  billiards  and  a  place  to  rest  and  talk. 

That's  what  they  got,  insofar  as  the  earnest  effort  of  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  hospitable  people  in  the  camp  towns 
all  over  the  United  States  could  see  that  they  got  such  home 
welcomes.  There  was  no  coddling,  no  charity,  no  philan- 
thropy in  the  formal  sense,  no  institutional  feeling.  The  idea 
was  that  these  folks  were  entertaining  the  neighbors'  boys. 
Doing  it  in  that  spirit,  they  did  it  well. 

But  never  mind,  for  a  moment,  what  they  did  for  the  boys 
in  uniform.    More  important,  or  at  least  equally  important, 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


15 


was  what  they  did  for  themselves.  Read  the  story  of  South- 
port.  That  tells  it.  Folks  got  acquainted  as  they  never  had 
before.    They  became  neighbors. 

The  war  is  over;  now  what1    Shall  we  lose  its  benefits1 

Had  the  community  spirit  been  developed  to  the  extent  it 
might  have  been  developed  a  decade  or  two  before  the  war 
woke  us  up,  how  many  ugly  things  that  are  rearing  their 
heads  now  would  never  have  been  born!  These  things 
cannot  exist  where  every  man  is  a  neighbor  and  friend  to 
every  other  man  in  his  community.  When  men  and  women 
and  children  all  play  together  they  understand  one  another. 
Suspicion  disappears,  friendship  is  born  and  justice  reigns. 

Utopian?    It  is  not  Utopian. 

It  is  the  most  practical  thing  in  a  practical  world. 

Community  Service,  then,  is  going  to  make  over  America 
in  a  year? 

Nobody  said  anything  so  absurd.  But  the  idea  behind 
Community  Service  would  make  over  America  and  the  world 
if  it  could  be  applied  to  the  ultimate  of  its  possibilities. 
Perhaps  you  are  pessimistic  enough  to  think  that  such  a 
day  never  will  arrive.  But  you  have  no  objection,  have  you, 
to  something  tangible,  say  a  playground  in  your  neighbor- 
hood, or  a  Community  House  where  people  can  go  for 
neighborhood  parties  and  dances  and  meetings  of  all  kinds? 
That  is  the  beginning  of  the  Community  Service  idea. 

It  is  non-sectarian,  non-partisan,  non-rigid.  Its  aim  is 
to  make  itself  superfluous  as  soon  as  possible.  It  has  nothing 
to  sell;  nothing  to  give  away  except  the  benefit  of  its  extensive 
experience  in  teaching  communities  to  find  themselves,  as 
Southport  has  done. 

A  means  has  been  found  for  giving  peace-time  permanence 


THE  TOWN  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


16 


to  the  benefits  of  united  community  effort  in  Community 
Service  (Incorporated).  It  inherits  all  of  War  Camp  Com- 
munity Service's  invaluable  experience  and  it  inherits,  too, 
the  benefits  of  the  long  experience  of  the  Playground 
Association.  It  operates  nationally,  as  any  such  movement 
must  operate  if  every  community  is  to  have  the  benefit  of 
what  is  learned  by  practical  and  successful  work  in  others. 

It  will  not  intrude  upon  you,  but  it  will  help  you  and 
your  community  if  it  is  invited.    Call  upon  it. 

Let  us  not  lose  the  fine  spirit  of  enthusiasm  and  of  common 
purpose  which  we  learned  when  we  united  for  the  great  and 
holy  purpose  of  winning  the  war.  Let's  pull  together  always 
for  a  better  America  and  a  friendlier  home  town. 

The  idea  once  was  put  better  for  us  than  we  ever  can  hope 
to  put  it — 

"Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 


